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Tuesday football thread
Depending on your opinion Chelsea played proper 21st century football and won themselves a great win with a remarkable performance
OR
All Mou did was work out you need to put three midfielders man marking Yaya Toure and the rest of the Man City team collapses around him.
Kinnear sacked! The final judgement on his signings. As an aspirant member of the Newcastle Cockney Mafia I've obviously been left a little isolated by this OR this has created a vacuum which Mike surely must be about to ask me to fill.
Leeds do loads of funny stuff.
"Whenever United stated into adversity
or disappointment, I have always found him remarkably strong in those moments.
You could never spot any doubt in his words or behaviour. That always transferred back to the players."
- Marilyn Monroe
Really enjoyed the game last night
Really odd to see city carved open so many times at home.
Both teams are a class apart from everyone else.
not according to mourinho
It's Arsenal or Liverpool's to lose
That explains the current league table
think the fact we're flying under the radar to an extent
helps us more than hurts us. the likelihood is that this season's gonna be at least one year too soon, but we've put ourselves in a good position and last night's result is a great one for arsenal. the longer people dismiss us while we still actually remain in the mix, the less pressure there is. think it'll be a huge ask for the squad (depleted as it is) to successfully get through the run of fixtures we have but this is surely where all arsenal fans want to be?
when was the last time we came into games like the ones coming up in the next couple of months with this much riding on them? we'll probably fall short, but the fact we have these massive games with our title hopes riding on almost every game we play is incredibly exciting. i still back city to win the league, but last night keeps it very interesting.
Arsenal fans are pretty giddy considering they're going to spend
the next 2 months getting absolutely dicked in both the CL and the PL.
probably yeah
its an incredibly daunting run, coming out of it with 2 losses or less in the league would be impressive. keeping the bayern tie alive into the second leg would be fairly decent-going too.
strong likelihood is it ends in tears and shrill cries from many arsenal fans about how we should have bought a striker, how wenger's lost it, how so-and-so isn't good enough etc.
Don't think any of us are giddy
Just happy to be here right now considering how the season began. We know it's very unlikely we'll win the title.
And since Bayern dick everyone in the CL, not too fussed about that.
Dicked everyone bar Jimmy Milner*
still smarting from last night, huh?
Are you not a Forest fan now you're temporarily back on top?
I hope that sentence made sense in your head
come on now.
i've spent the last week denouncing the club
In fairness to City
that result would most likely never have happened if we had two comparably important players - say Hazard and Ramires - out. Both sides have strong squads, strong enough that a missing player or two won't make much of a difference in about 30 of the league's 38 games, but small margins can result in big differences at the very top.
Not sure anyone has the opinion that three players man-marked Yaya Toure, you saucy little minx. Nemanja Matic did that all by himself- completely befuddled a player who was routinely destroyed us in recent years. Was wary of him because of the selling him for £3 and a Snickers and buying him back for the sun and stars thing, but he's looking very fucking good indeed.
Dead chuffed with the performance and result.
Chelsea were great last night
really galvanising performance. The type that Jose used to get out of Inter.
"Do exactly what i say and you will win" and they beat the best team in the country, could be a start on a run for the title i think.
Sooooooo glad we turned him down for Moyes :(
Some nice digs at Moyes post match to.
Looking at Man City's next few league games
Can't see them missing Aguero too much. In fact, not sure they'll drop any points at all in February or March.
how long's fernandinho out for?
he could be a bigger miss in the perceived easier games than aguero.
3 weeks.
Think that fucks up Barca as he was key to being able to close down their midfield.
i would've backed you to beat barca
with a near fully fit side, obviously still might. thats a shame though, would've been great to see you take em on properly, honestly think you'd have done em across the two legs fairly comfortably.
what pl games does he miss?
We don't play anyone outside the bottom half for the next 4 games I think.
Norwich A, Sunderland H, Stoke H, Villa H. in between that is also the league cup final, Barca and Chelsea in the FA cup.
.
Norwich (A)
Sunderland (H)
Chelsea (H?) - FA Cup
Stoke (H)
Sunderland - League Cup final
That takes it into early March anyway
Meh pretty philosophical about last night.
Went 20 unbeaten and were undone by the best manager in the league at a point when we're missing 3 key players and the squad is too walking wounded to even bring on more than one sub, although why he didn't use give lopes 10 minutes is a bit beyond me.
Thought Jovetic looked quality when he came on but other than that we completely lacked any kind of composure in the final 3rd and our tactical set up left Kolarov and Nastasic exposed when these are the two people who needed the most cover.
Anyone see Michael Owen on twitter
after the match last night? He went all rabid and started calling everybody out for `not being able to see` that it was obvious Chelsea would win after City lined up 4-4-2. Posted about 12 different points about it. Was quite something.
Gotta thank Mourinho for that win – it’s single-handedly kept any semblance of a `title race` alive. We should all be thankful.
peasants
What about all that milky horse stuff, eh?
Has anyone
photoshopped John Terry's head onto a little horse being given milk from a bottle by Jose yet?
So Demichelis in midfield worked out pretty well, huh?
Really impressive stuff from Chelsea, seems that 'midfield sweeper' thing that Mourinho's Real tried against Barca works a lot better when you have someone like Matic or Ramires doing it instead of a sociopath like Pepe
Was there an alternative explanation for all the empty seats with 10 mins left?
If it's due to having a tanty because they were not winning it's one of the most pathetic spectacles I think I've ever seen. Surely it wasn't that?
Win or lose our place is terrible for emptying out early.
Fans were pretty poor last night in general. Giving dogs abuse to our own players.
This is a bit funny
https://twitter.com/easstudios/status/430527364163174400/photo/1
Now you've made me look at Custis' face. Cheers lad.
At least half of Sweet's hair is cropped out
Small merices
I'm choosing to imagine that's a photo of a noticeboard at your house
and that you cut out all of those yourself. You cannot stop me.
WRONG
It's actually a sandwich board I wore to work this morning
thought that said essa rios for a sec. disappointed.
Matic was brilliant last night
That was genuinely impressive from Chelsea last night.
Shows how monolithic City have been of late that when I tuned in with 40 mins left it seemed like a shock to see Chelsea leading. Which is stupid because it's more like two monocle & top hat-wearing Mr Peanuts slugging it out than a David vs Goliath scenario.
Cost of the two starting elevens must be pretty similar?
In fact Chelsea's probably cost more as we were missing our only two 30m plus players.
http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/LeBron-James-Smallest-Violin-Gif.gif
That was my point
It shouldn't be that much of a surprise that they won, since you both have teams built on the back of wealth made on resources that are ultimately going to destroy the planet.
You could learn a lot from this Corn Baron sniffing around Leeds.
I was concurring with your point.
ok
but promise to think about my point about the corn baron
I think they added it all up on Sky before the match..
apparently both starting elevens cost £156 million.
it was like M Bison losing to the light-green outfit M Bison
Arsenal are Chun Li?
see you tomorrow
In Kinnear’s time at the club
What did he actually do on a typical 9-5 day? You know, after he’d parked up the Jag, strolled into the office, said hello to Brenda on reception, made himself a big old coffee, turned on the computer, cracked his knuckles....and then what?
Going by his occasional moments of coherence,
a lot of his job seemed to involve 'picking up the phone' and 'opening doors', so Concierge?
I don't think he spent much time in Newcastle by the sounds of it.
Think he spent most of his time at home, sat on the carpet, eating posh biscuits and wanking.
wait
and this role is now vacant? My skillset overlaps almost precisely with this jposition AND I have no more than a passing interest in the health of NUFC, just like JK.
ohgood - fetch me the fancy CV paper
hey I already called it Lucien
NOBODY wanks on the carpet like me.
As if he used a computer!
One of my Toon-supporting mates
Told me that when he was hired, a large part of his remit was to scout players through Youtube. Obviously he could be your smartphone type of guy, but I suspect he was probably using a clunky Windows XP somewhere in the back offices.
Isn't that how they ended up saddled with Xisco for 5 years?
Poor old JFK, stuck in his office, having to endure hours of shitty grime or house music on YouTube skills compilations
MOURINHO THE MAGICIAN
MOURINHO MARKING MASTERCLASS
JOSE THE DADDY?
MOUR MOUR MOUR (how do you like it? how do you like it?)
MOU-JUSTFUCKOFFWILLYOUHEPLAYEDTWOHOLDINGMIDFIELDERSNOTRAISETHETITANIC
For a squad loads of pundits said is the best in the world
It's amazing what losing a couple of players did to City last night. Shows they're just like everyone else. Which we always knew, but I guess forgot after the spate of mulit-goal thrashings...
After having a midfield that needed pretty much completely replacing
Suddenly Chelsea seem to have one that'll do them for the next 10 years. How'd they do that, then?
welcome to oilball
Mou little pony.
Can't imagine many teams doing well against Chelsea with a 33 year old centreback in midfield
who is a disaster even when played in position. If we had had even Garcia available we wouldn't have looked quite so catastrophic in defence, but as it was Ramires and Matic had a fine old time. Chelsea got everything spot on. I gained an appreciation for why Mourinho is building this team around Edin Azzar, he's taken a serious step forward this season and looks awesome in every part of the field.
With all that said I felt we could have grabbed a point if either Aguero or Negredo were fully fit and one of the few chances we carved out hadn't fallen to Nastasic or a man made entirely out of silly string and rubber. The next few Pl games are on paper easy but losing both Fernandinho and Aguero for Barca is a bitter blow to our chances. Why did you have to have been so fucking broken and wank, Rodwell.
isn't Milner fit?
Just back from injury
Wouldn't have minded him coming on for Demichelis in the last half hour. Pellegrini isn't big on tactical rejigs however.
Ah, the number of times I’ve heard that last sentence…
the Hoogy hairdryer treatment
I didn't get where I am today by being nice to everyone
obviously
Oh lord how I miss Gaz Baz. Still got no idea why we didn't keep him as backup.
Think Pellers for all his good traits has a couple of real blind spots. Be cool if Richards re-found some form so we could move Zaba into the middle for these kind of games, unfortunately I don't think that'll ever happen again.
HOLD ON
Richard Wright is at Man City??
they're gonna corrupt him
he's the only pure thing there.
Unsullied by playing time, probably still wears his Ipswich kit on the bench
hes been there for 2 years
PRobably on about 20k a week
Just catches a few balls for a couple of hours every day then drives home in his mad fuck off Range Rover.
Still must feel like a peasent when he's rubbing shoulders with people who earn 200k a week..
the poor sod
First Stuart Taylor, now Richard Wright
Rami Shaaban must be well excited
sdf
sdf
oops
Liverpool fans – were any of you surprised by the result on Sunday in the slightest?
Irritatingly predictable. I didn’t expect to win, but I did expect more goals. It was a stinker of a game, possibly the first shite Liverpool game to be televised this season. We thrill the neutrals normally, the lucky sods.
We should do Fulham and Swansea out of our next games, but I fully expect a double batty-pounding off Arsenal in both those upcoming games. If you offered me a win in either of them, I’d take the league one all day. With a Suarez brace, por favor.
Didn't see the game
but wasn't surprised at all by the result. Combination of lethargy and our defensive misorganisation causing us to miss out on 3 points. Can't really complain in the grand scheme of things but we really do need a world class centre half in the summer. The main 4 we've got are all decent but all flawed in some way. Need to get a Carragher/Hyypia type line-leader back in there.
If this squad finishes 4th this season
it'll be one of the biggest over-achievements of recent seasons for us.
Imagine that defence getting us into the CL... I'd be amazed. But I still think we can do it, such is the faith I've got in the manager.
I'm starting to believe, wrighty. I'm starting to believe.
Brendan's barely put a foot wrong all season. I've been very impressed with him.
If we carry on what we're doing (winning most of the games we should do) then I think 4th is a very realistic shout.
today's
Man Utd question. If they don't get top 4, will they have problems getting good players in the next transfer window?
Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal will have more pull next transfer market. If fourth place is liverpool, then they could easily draw away players which would have instead gone to Man Utd.
If fourth is Everton and Spurs, i think that could be seen as a one off result, and that players would see Man utd as a bigger bet. Liverpool back in the Champions League however, would be seen as them back in the top flight on a permanent basis, and more attractive to the players Man Utd need.
Still, winner of Europa Cup gets a Champions league place next year. Maybe that can be Man Utd's plan
doesn't really work in those black and white terms does it
how did Liverpool get Suarez, Sturridge, Coutinho etc in the same time period that Arsenal bought Park Chu-Young and Gervinho and Man Utd bought Ashley Young and Phil Jones.
Well
Suarez was because of his discipline problems? Sturridge was on the outs with Chelsea and not highly rated until he got to Liverpool, and i don't think Coutino was on anyones radar.
^ Yep
All of them risky purchases/gambles to a large extent. All 3 evident talents but all came with baggage/question marks which bigger/richer clubs rarely need to worry about in their pursuit of talent.
It's kinda reminiscent of the early days of the Prem when the star players which weren't homegrown were either ageing continental heroes (Zola, Vialli etc.) or players with baggage/risk from abroad (Bergkamp, Viera, Cantona, Ginola etc.) Took a long time for the world's very, very best to come to the Prem.
exactly. not black and white is it
Shark jumped.
^
United haven't been the best at signing top-end talent in recent years, anyway. Van Persie and Mata were acquired down to circumstances that rarely arise.
Thing is, while United have been really good it has been really hard for them to identify and sign players better than those they have. A lot of their players aren't that good any more- there's a far bigger pool of realistically available improvements to pick from now.
United can't win the Europa League this year
As they're in the last 16 of the Champions League.
i
know, but the new rules for the Europa cup come into effect next year. I'm assuming Man Utdf will be good enough to get a spot in that at least.
Depends if City win the League cup
If Sunderland win then United would need to finish 5th in the league.
Surely all the billioball teams will be chucking their wantaway/unwanted players at United
Particularly outside of England. Not in direct competition, presumably willing to pay a premium, willing to meet extortionate wage demnad, and prestigious enough to vaguely interest players. Slim chances of attracting the most exciting young players on the up though, I'll give you that.
Genuinely think that if United: 1. Got a new manager early summer who had a decent rep in Europe and some contacts and 2. Somehow kept Rooney & RVP; they'd be right back in it next season. Of course, it's easier said than done to find that manager, Moyes will be given a second miserable term, and the team will slip further.
Incredible scenes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26034711
hmm
http://twohundredpercent.net/?p=25352
Interesting that some clubs may try to get Man City banned from Champions league next year for breaking FFP rules.
Joe Ledley
Joe Ledley seems to be a big hit with Thai kids, I hope they aren't too upset that he has left Celtic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-5Bf0OmYtA#t=48
Laudrup sacked
jfc that's ridiculous
found him pretty boring anyway
presumably it's not just for on the pitch reasons though
harsh if it is
Sounds very much like something else is at play.
Laudrup strikes me as shamelessly careerist (not that he should be ashamed), I'd put money on it being down to exorbitant demands or the club finding out that he's actively touting himself about.
Apparently some of the senior players were unhappy with his approach
to training, preparation for games, etc. The board were planning to revamp the coaching set up in any event, so it may be they thought that wouldn't be enough.
Saw Joe Kinnear had made himself available and acted snappily.
Bit surprised tbh.
I know Swansea have been going through a bad patch of late, but I thought they'd give him until at least the end of the season. Interesting timing, too, with the South Wales Derby coming up on Saturday.
Agreed
They were the best team we've played at home this year, they were outstanding.
Haven't they had a load of injuries? It seems harsh. I know they are only 2 points above the relegation zone, but they are also 12th.
Swansea always seem to make good appointments, but if they don't sort this out quickly I could see them dropping further.
still his longest job in management, isnt it?
Pisspoor attendance at the cottage of dreams.
Magic of the cup
itv are showing who wants to be a millionaire instead too.
*celebrity
tbf
pisspoor football as well
you can tell these teams are struggling in their respective decisions.
*decisions? divisions ffs
Ferguson apart
Seems like no manager has lasted a year after winning the League Cup in recent years. Maybe Man City winning it would be a good thing after all.
they did all quit
The Mercury Prize of the footballing world.
Bloody hell
Having discovered getting through would reward us with struggling Conference South side Gosport for a shot at Wembley we've done the usual and made a mess of Havant and Waterlooville, also Conf South, in the FA Trophy quarter final tonight. Not losing yet but we're down to ten, never understood what players are thinking when they kick out at an opponent.
Ah here we go, 2-0 down
I'll reserve this corner of the thread to have a little cry in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo
looks like rodallega's just broken down on the fulham bench
he didn't seem happy
also
this is truly the worst game of football I have ever seen
Steinburg is doing his nut on the guardian's mvm to this almost as much as Rodallega did
Fucking hell
How bad is this match?
wonder how the press
who normally can't stifle their raging hard on for Huw Jenkins and his boardroom will report this.
Is this a typical example of short termism blighting the face of our game, or a shrewd considered decision?
As people have noted
Laudrup hasn't lasted two years at any of his last four clubs, so maybe he never gets on with the board at clubs etc
cant imagine anything less exciting
than a 0-0 after 105 minutes in an FA cup replay against a team 2 divisions lower than your team
losing to them from a 129th minute corner, i guess
Haha perfect.
Not even going to get penalties out of this.
looking forward to forest rinsing the pigs in the next round
seriously though, fulham are utter, utter pump
meulensteen and his coaching staff should be sacked on the spot imo
Meulesteen
I'm quite glad we didn't get him, he was 20 to 1 on before Pulis.
He seems absolutely clueless, plus he has Curbishly, Wilkins, two ex Manchester United first team coaches and Alex Ferguson on the phone. Too many cooks etc.
I'd swap them for Moyes and his world class coaching staff